victory over Republican Alfonse D'Amato in 1998 gave the Democrats both of the state's Senate seats for the first time since 1947. In 2004, conservative Michael Benjamin battled with the New York Republican State Committee for a chance to run against Schumer, which decided in August 2004 there would be no primary and selected moderate Assemblyman Howard Mills as the Republican candidate. Benjamin publicly accused New York GOP Chairman Sandy Treadwell and Governor George Pataki of trying to muscle him out of the Senate race and undermine the democratic process. Many Republican voters were upset when Benjamin was denied the chance to engage in a primary. Benjamin also had significant advantages over Mills in both fundraising and organization. Schumer won the largest victory ever recorded for a candidate running statewide in New York against Mills, carrying all but one of the state's counties. Many New York Republicans were irked again in 2006 when a similar situation unfolded as the state party decided to nominate Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro over conservative lawyer Ed Cox, even though Cox had raised over $1.3 million to Pirro's $400,000. In 2006, Clinton won the third largest victory ever recorded statewide, carrying all but four counties. In both cases, Schumer and Clinton didn't face serious opposition. New York's Democratic tilt also continued into 2010, even when Democrats were suffering heavy losses all around the country. Chuck Schumer easily defeated Jay Townsend to win a third term in the U.S. Senate with 66 percent of the vote. With both Senate seats up in New York, the media was more focused on the Class I seat because when Kirsten Gillibrand was first appointed in 2009, she initially looked very vulnerable due of her A+ rating from the NRA from when she was representing a rural upstate district. That rating was not well received by downstate residents when she was first appointed to the Senate. Then Gillibrand immediately changed her position on the issue of gun control after she was appointed to satisfy the concerns from downstate residents. She then went on to win the special election easily with 62 percent of the vote in 2010. In 2012, Gillibrand was re-elected in a landslide with more than 72% of the vote, the highest statewide vote share ever received by a senatorial candidate in New York State. Presidential elections Throughout most of the 20th century, New York was